Dead as a Doornail

About the author:
Look buddy, I'm a fiction author. That means I write stories. Not stories like, "A Celebrity's Life Story," because that would fall under the purview of your non-fiction stories. I write flights of fancy.
View profile »

Dead and fading, Watt Johnson is living - sort of - on borrowed time. Stuck in the perpetual clashes between Negites - demonic souls hell-bent on consuming the wandering spirits of the dead, and Reapers - elevated souls tasked with vanquishing Negites. Guided constantly by the Reaper known as the Lightning Princess, Watt sets out to find out just why he's stuck on our mortal plane, and just how he can advance to the afterlife. Though, as always, it's never as easy as it sounds.

Dead.That was the simplest way of putting it across.The boy was dead, and he was staring down at his own body, the blood seeping from it spreading with the incessant downpour. He was having trouble processing the situation, despite having accepted it. He was staring at his own body, a lone soul gazing upon its mortal vessel. The only thing that would have made him look more pathetic, was if the rain actually made contact with his spirit, and made him just as waterlogged as his cadaver. This was actually a more common occurrence than he thought – in fact, it was actually normal for it to take place.

Reaching out to touch his own dirt-brown hair, it became apparent that interacting with the world was not going to be easy, if he could at all. Instead, his translucent hand passed straight through, leaving him without the ability to even shut his eyelids. Two dull, green eyes stared blankly at the clouds, nothing more than the slowly-rotting remains of a sixteen-year-old boy. He leaned back against a wall, and thought – just about how absurd it all was. He could have wondered why he wasn’t falling back-first through the many miles of the Earth, but other things crowded his mind at this point.Like trying to make sense of this mish-mash of events.

Without thinking, his hands shot to his ears, a piercing ringing noise filling them, but with no explanation in place. Eyes widening with the immediate pain it caused, he curled himself up a slight amount more, trying to fathom just why he was hearing such a thing. And then it hit him – quite literally in fact. The reason as to why there was a ringing in his ears hit him, square in the stomach, launching him a fair few metres into the air. People kept telling him pain let him know that he was alive, but at this point, the pain and the fact he was dead made sure he wiped that saying from his mind. Without time to gather his thoughts, he saw the titanic hand reaching towards him, most likely not to break his fall.

But, the poor unfortunate soul managed to catch a second wind, in the sense that he did not get grabbed, but instead landed flat on his face, one a concrete pavement. Although no visible injuries were on him, the pain was tangible. What he refused to believe was, was the anthropomorphic bull with its left arm cleaved clean off. It wasn’t especially gaudy in its colour scheme, sticking to varying shades of black, but given that it was at least seven feet tall and built like a tank, it was quite a terrifying creature to be witness to. What was even more amazing was who was standing up to it.

Twirling a greatsword at least as big as she was about her fingers as if it were merely a pencil, a girl – whose appearance made her look no older than he did – hopped from side to side in mid-air, in much the same way a boxer would.“Come on, tough guy! That all a muscly brute like you can do?”She taunted the beast, her smirk and tone infuriatingly cocky. The sword crackled with energy, tongues of electricity occasionally sparking off of it, though neither party seemed concerned. The bull uttered a guttural roar towards its new priority, to which it received the response of rolling eyes, and a bored grunt. “Amateur. Honestly, I come out looking for a good time, and all I get for my troubles is this sadsack... Wonderful.”

Enraged by this display of cockiness, the beast swung its remaining fist at the cobalt-haired girl, an attack she seemed to block effortlessly. Intercepting the fist with her forearm, she brushed the blow aside like sweeping away dust, and severed its single arm with her barely a sweat breaking. The sword was almost as big as her and looked to be quite weighty, but she moved and attacked effortlessly with it, cutting through its targets without so much as a grunt. A pained roar erupted from it, though this was quickly stopped, upon its head being sliced clean off of its body.

The boy simply stared at his saviour, a strange mix of awe and utter confusion plastered upon his face. Noticing her admirer, the girl swung her sword over her shoulder, cocking her head to the side after turning to him in mid-air.“And just what’re you looking at, then?”

Select a previous page...

Note: Keep in mind that the From: field of the email message sent by this form will contain your email address,
and will therefore be available to the recipient. If you're not comfortable with this, please
close this window.